A week before Christmas, my brother E.TeacherLord flew up to Canberra so that we could celebrate the holiday as a family. In honour of his arrival, my parents, grandparents, and I took him to a Thai restaurant, Baan Latsamy, for lunch.

Except that’s not quite what happened.

Instead, I got a call on Sunday morning from my mother, telling me that my brother’s plane had been forced to turn around and land back in Melbourne because the landing gear wouldn’t retract.

“But it’s okay,” she said calmly, “we’ll still be having lunch together; this just means we’ll collect him from the airport on the way.”

Except that’s not quite what happened.

Instead, when my dad picked me up en route to Baan Latsamy, he told me that E.TeacherLord hadn’t been able to get another flight until 3pm.

“But it’s okay,” he said calmly, “we might as well still eat without him, right?”

And that is how, on a rainy Sunday lunchtime in December, my three grandparents, parents, and I enjoyed a laughter-filled, spicy, and well-cooked (for the most part, but we’ll get to that) Thai lunch, all while I periodically texted my brother in Melbourne to tell him how tasty the food was and to thank him for being the cause of our lovely celebration.

Turns out we only needed the excuse, not the actual person.

After disappointing experiences with green papaya/paw paw salad in both Paris and here in Canberra with Helen, I had lost faith in the possibility of my ever finding a truly spicy, zingy, flavourful, and knock-my-socks off rendition of the dish.

Enter Baan Latsamy. This restaurant’s Som Tum (“shredded green paw paw salad in a spicy sauce”) was everything I’d ever dreamed of and more. Sure, I was expecting some nuts, prawns, or other protein to appear in the salad, as that’s what I’ve been served before, but I really couldn’t fault the intense flavour punch of this salad. The shredded paw paw, carrots, and cherry tomatoes had been tossed with a sauce so fragrant and flavourful I wanted to hug it, but I settled for gobbling it up.

Only after the last swallow did I realise that this Som Tum was, in fact, very spicy. My mouth started to feel like Hades, and so I kept my lips tightly shut to avoid Eurydice escaping if I opened them.

My dad had the duck lunch special, which was apparently so good that he forgot to share it with Mum, as had been promised. Mum, my grandmothers, and grandfather all also enjoyed their meals (from memory, a chicken with cashews, a beef with cashews, a green curry chicken, and a something with something. The last dish was particularly good, I’m sure).

Then came dessert, at which point we all made clever choices, were heartily pleased with our sweets, and didn’t get smacked with the karma stick.

Except that’s not quite what happened.

Instead, karma decided to wreak revenge on behalf of my poor taunted-and-stuck-in-an-airport brother, by convincing my dad and me to share a Cookies and Cream Cheesecake.

In a Thai restaurant.

Yep.

First issue: the ratio of cheesecake to plate. Seriously, is that not the tiniest sliver of cheesecake you’ve ever seen?

Second issue: the cheesecake bent. As in, when I tried to put my spoon through it, the cheesecake was so old and dried out that the entire cake bowed under the pressure of the spoon rather than yielding to it. My dad had to hold the cheesecake in place with his spoon so that I could hack through it.

To be fair, there was a 7mm section in the centre of the cheesecake that was soft and tasty, but I’ll tell you this for free:

Karma is rubbery plasticky cheesecake.

Thankfully my mother has the smarts, and ordered black sticky rice with custard and fresh mango. Although I’ve never thought of myself as particularly enamoured with coconut-rich sticky rice, Dad and I couldn’t help ourselves from “contributing” to Mum polishing off this dessert.

Oh dear. I had to laugh at the thought of your entire family enjoying lunch without the guest of honour, but then cried on the inside at the sight of your disappointing cheesecake (when in Rome! or should I say, when in Bangkok!). I am so glad though, that you’ve finally have the pleasure of an amazing som tum. It’s usually pounded with snake beans too, and I love having it with sticky rice. Bliss.

The deliciousness of the Som Tum more than made up for the cheesecake, thankfully! Though I should probably add that nothing made up for the missing guest of honour 😛 (Mmm, snake beans would have been wonderful!)

I bet it would *never* have happened on a flight you were hostess-with-the-mostest-of, Rob! 😉

Thank you for the link, but guess what? I already had it bookmarked and actually looked at it the day I had the Baan Latsamy version, because I wanted to recreate it! I bet you I’ll make your key lime tart first though 😉

Can’t wait to see your take on the sticky rice! I should’ve guessed you’d have something up your sleeve in that regard, knowing your love of coconut and mango as I do!

I must defend myself here, BFF, lest you think ill of me! I firmly and explicitly told Dad that it would be silly to order cheesecake in a Thai restaurant, but he wouldn’t listen to me. Honestly, he’ll corroborate this!

I’m glad he arrived safely eventually too – particularly as he’d bought me chocolate at the Melb airport while waiting for his flight! 😀

You are so witty, you ought to be publishing a column in a newspaper. If it werent that I ended up feeling worried for your brother and all his flights delay, I would have enjoyed me much more; good thing his plane got there safely after all. Oh and that meal, the salad and duck look mighty good.

Your brother and Anna Bligh share the lighting-strike thing in common, since yesterday! Sticky rice with mango was hands down my favourite thing about Thailand. Surprisingly, the thai restaurants I’ve been to in Townsville don’t have it on the dessert menus – not even as a seasonal special over summer. Lame! I tried making it once, and it wasn’t quite right. I shall try again, however.

hehe next time you can just put a picture of your brother up and he needn’t risk his life getting on a plane that might get struck by lightning no less! I mean really-that is crazy. The fates were clearly trying to spare him that cheesecake!

With the cheesecake, I think the waitress had decided to punish us for sharing one serving between us, and plated up the smallest piece imaginable so that we’d fight over it. More fool her – it was so terrible we kept trying to convince the other person to finish it!

Mmmm… something with something. That’s my very favorite Thai dish! So glad you finally found papaya salad nirvana, right in your very own hometown. I also suspect that this is why I have been craving and cooking Thai-inspired food lately. So thank you, my telempathic (sic – it’s like telepathy and empathy, and I just made it up. What do you think?) friend.

😀 I reply to every single comment! Point of pride, and also, I like chatting with people here 🙂 Though I must admit I’m very nervous about giving advice about anything that doesn’t involve chocolate, particularly as I’m techno-illiterate (as I’m sure you know already…).

I blog through WordPress – I started off with one of their free accounts, then bought my own domain but am still all about the WordPress Wonderment. It seems to be the preferred option for a lot of bloggers, but then again a lot of my friends use blogspot and don’t seem to have issues with it. I don’t really know of anyone who uses Posterous or Tumblr, though, so couldn’t comfortably tell you to go with either of those!

Fantastic to hear you’ll be up again soon! If you give me enough warning, I might even be able to whip up a raw vegan cheezecake… 😉

Great story. I can’t believe that you would order something like cookies and cream cheesecake at a thai restaurant! Never go past the black sticky rice. Always delicious, and this one looks great with a big glob of mango.

Search

Subscribe

About

Hannah. Writer, editor, firm believer in socks, gin, laughter, buttered toast, cheesecake, and semicolons. Currently back in Canberra after two years living in Canada; heart tingling to see what happens next.